Local Government (L3)

Localism is Real

There exists everywhere a social territory defined by the daily travel of its inhabitants, typically a town or rural district. Within this territory, members of a household live, (often) work, shop, go to school, receive health care, get professional services, find many work opportunities, and pursue leisure activities.

Any regional tier-L4 must subdivide its territory in accord with local communities-L3. The region cannot avoid recognizing the inherent demand within these communities for their own political organization.

The organizational expression of the desire for self-governance in a social territory-L3 is extremely varied. The THEE-name for it is: local government.

Terms for Local Territories are many and include: Provinces, Counties, Districts, Towns, Municipalities, Communes, Localities; Area, Shire, Borough, Metropolitan District plus a range of non-English names. The governing entity may be called an Authority or a Council.

Whereas higher levels (L4 & L5) will be concerned with services in abstractions (i.e. in terms of their general form and range, the standard of provision, priorities between services, and inequalities within the state), local government-L3 will be concerned with actual delivery and the specific details of local needs and preferences.

Local government, where it exists, will be empowered to produce regulations mandated by higher level laws, as well as its own by-laws which must be obeyed.

Co-terminosity of Local Services

Local governments often seek to provide services coterminous with their community, i.e. delivered uniformly across the geographical territory of that community. This is natural but often unwise.

The optimum size of territory which can be served effectively by an efficient organization will vary greatly from one service to another. This service territory may be larger or smaller than the local government territory.

In general, it is better to optimise the service territory, rather than artificially fit it to the local government catchment area.

Read more on social territories & service territories.

Political Control

There are many options for politically ensuring service provision. Local councillors can relate to and control services in a variety of ways including for example:

• Specifying contracts and monitoring performance of contractors
• Directing providers through the use of Council committees.
• Sitting on Joint Boards with members of other Councils
• Sitting on Joint Boards with other nominees who are not councillors.
• Sitting on Joint Boards with top management.
• Sanctioning policies for negotiating contracts with service providers.
• Developing policies to assist citizens in dealings with service providers.
• Providing subsidies to service users in particular categories.

The essence is flexibility in structures, and an acceptance of variation to suit communities and also to suit the nature of the services.

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• Now continue with still smaller political territories.

Originally posted: August-2009; Last updated: 15-Nov-2010